


Red-Letter Days

by fEl24601



Series: Ruby Red [2]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Angst, Baz and Simon are great dads, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fatherhood, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon, domestic as hell, minimal plot maximum feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 16:52:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15490404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fEl24601/pseuds/fEl24601
Summary: Set 5 years after Ruby Red.Ruby Snow-Pitch is turning eleven. Baz and Simon see their daughter through several important milestones.





	Red-Letter Days

 

BAZ

 

The summer went by too fast. Way too fast. Criminally fast.

Simon and I love to whine about how the last five and a half years have gone by too fast— every Christmas and birthday is an excuse for our finely curated arsenal of ‘they grow up so fast’ jokes to make an appearance. Ruby groans and leans her forehead into her palm whenever we get going.

“Oh my god,” she says, every time. (We put her in mage school and she still wound up with all these Normal phrases. How she managed it I’ll never know.) “Stop. You do this every year.”

It’s true though. (Both. That summer went by too fast and that she does that every time.) Summer was fast and I resented it. It was still lovely though, like every other summer. There are few ways to complain when you spend your summer whiling away the days with your family. Simon mentioned in passing early on that it’s possible to make your own ice cream, and that instantly became Ruby’s project for the summer. She made dozens of flavours, increasingly outlandish, and made Simon and I play the panel of judges giving each one elaborate critiques. Simon’s favourite was, unsurprisingly, cherry, and I found myself quite partial to cinnamon. We took trips to the beach, and even spent a week at my family’s estate visiting grandma and grandpa and the aunts and uncles. Mordelia moved out a couple years prior, after she left Watford, but we coordinated the visit so she could be there too. Ruby loves Mordelia. She says she’s ‘morbid,’ which is appropriate. Ruby is anything but morbid— she has a sunny disposition that she certainly did not get from me. (A razor-sharp wit though, for a ten year old, and her eyebrow work rivals mine.) It just makes Mordelia love her more. I think she very much hopes to corrupt her one day. This summer, though, she was content to go about their annual tradition of catching fireflies behind the house and telling incriminating stories about me during my Watford years.

Ruby came into her magic on that trip. She was helping Daphne in the gardens when she felt it, and Daphne screamed for all of us to come and see. Simon and I had been not-reading in the library, (it’s hard to find time to fool around with your husband when you have a ten year old. Sue me, we saw an opportunity and took advantage) (also he’s fucking beautiful and can make me weak with just his tongue, I’ll take any chance I can get) so it took us a moment to notice that there was any commotion at all, but we leapt up as soon as we heard her. Ruby was sitting in the dahlias, beaming. All of the flowers were dusted with white. She’d made it snow. Simon all-out cried, and it was enough of a show that blessedly no one remembers that I did too.

(It was well worth the interruption.)

Shortly after her magic came her fangs. That was less lovely. Thank Crowley we were back at home by then, because our planning and preparation for this particular development did not include Malcolm Grimm being there muttering about soulless blood-sucking monsters. (I knew from experience that that was less than helpful.) She woke up screaming bloody murder that night, and Simon and I burst headlong into her room to find her clutching at her mouth, sobbing.

“It’s all right, love, it’s your fangs,” I told her, running to her side in an instant. She was hyperventilating through her fingers. “You’ll be okay, darling, breathe.” I hugged her tight, looking over her shoulder at Simon and meeting his eyes. He nodded once, understanding, and he hurried out. This was my realm of expertise, my time to go through this with my daughter. Simon had a part to play meanwhile.

She cried and shook, hands covering her mouth, sobbing into my shirt. I murmured in her ear the whole time, holding her tight to my chest as though I could squeeze my love right into her. “I’m here, Ruby. I’m here. You’re all right. I love you. It’s okay.” I was acutely familiar with the feeling of huge, sharp, foreign teeth shoving through into my mouth. It was horrible, and terribly frightening. It made one feel monstrous. (That was something I was still working on. Simon was adamant that I was not a monster, and nor was I dead. I still disagreed, but Simon had brilliant ways to make me feel decidedly _un-monstrous_ and very much alive when I needed to be reminded.)

I pulled back from her a few minutes later, just far enough to see her face. I gently pulled her hands off of her mouth, and kissed her forehead.

“It’ll be easier if you think of them as yours. Feel them if you can.” I kept my eyes on her face while she tentatively poked at her fangs, first with her fingers and then with her tongue. Fresh tears spilled out of her eyes. I was crouched in front of her, and from my angle she was a taller than me. I pushed her hair off her clammy forehead. “I know, love. It’ll get easier. I have them too.” She knew this, of course, but I doubt it truly registered with her until that moment. She stared at me, cheeks shining. I brushed the tears away with my thumbs. I had done this alone, when it had happened to me. Totally alone, over the summer at the manor. We never spoke of my condition at home. My daughter would not go through the same thing.

She swallowed. Her mouth looked fuller than usual— I could see what Simon meant. “Can I…” she started. I didn’t make her finish it, just concentrated until I felt my fangs pop. I opened my mouth a little to show her.

Her breaths started to slow back down after that. I held her hands, kneeling in front of her, while she tried to match her breathing to mine. The tears slowed as well. She was being so, _so_ brave.

Then she said “Father, I’m-“ and cut off, choked. She looked down, as though she were ashamed.

I clenched my jaw at the thought. Ruby should never be ashamed of anything that she was. Ruby, the little vampire she was, would only ever be kind and brave and clever and my daughter. I wanted her to love herself as Simon and I loved her. This particular complication was just a part of her.

_(Oh.)_ Suddenly Simon’s arguments about my aliveness made a great deal more sense. I loved him all the more for it.

Ruby was _not_ dead. Not even close. No dead girl could do or say half the things that she did. (Did that make me alive, too? Simon had been saying so all along. Crowley, I didn’t deserve him.)

I nodded at Ruby. “Come with me.”

I led her to the kitchen with my arm around her shoulders. It was dim, the only light on was the one above the stove. Simon was there, beautiful in just his pyjama pants, pulling two mugs out of the microwave. It was so much easier when it was warm. “Thanks, love,” I murmured as I took both from him, and crouched back down in front of Ruby. (I could tell Simon later how much more I’d fallen in love with him in the last five minutes.) I held one mug out to her. She eyed it like it would leap up and attack her.

“It doesn’t taste bad,” I assured her. _Not like numpty blood. Or merwolf blood. Ugh._ She grimaced, and I chuckled.

She slowly reached out and took the mug. “What… what is it?” she asked, and I understood.

“Pig. It comes from the butcher.” She nodded, looking relieved. (I hoped she didn’t think I would actually feed her human blood. I’d never tasted it, there was no need for her to.) Her hair was in her face again, sticking to her damp cheeks, hanging dangerously close to her mug. Standing behind her, Simon gently pulled her hair back while she stared down into the dark red liquid. He kept his hands there, keeping her unruly hair behind her shoulders. She gulped.

“Together?” I suggested. She looked at me for a moment, long and wary, then nodded. I clinked our mugs together, gently. “Cheers,” I joked, and Ruby snorted. I raised my mug to my lips and she copied me, watching my eyes instead of what she was doing. We took a sip at the same time. When she lowered her mug there was red on her lips.

“Okay?” I asked her.

She showed me a tiny smile. “Okay,” she whispered. Simon kissed her head, warm hands on her shivering shoulders.

This was going better than expected. (Shocking how having your parents support you can make unpleasant situations more bearable. Hmm.)

“Drink as much as you can,” I told her. “You’ll feel so much better.”

“You, too?” Her eyes were pleading.

I nodded. “Of course.”

So we stood in the kitchen, at two in the morning, drinking warm blood together. Simon stood with us, not speaking, just catching Ruby’s errant curls, rubbing her shoulders, and yawning periodically. I loved him so much that night, providing moral support for his vampire daughter. Ruby was so lucky.

He took our mugs once we were both finished. (It took Ruby a little while, but she drank it all. I was very proud.) She and I were grinning at each other, like we shared a secret. 

“Everyone is brushing their teeth again,” Simon said.

 

 

Ruby’s eleventh birthday was at the end of August. It made our griping and complaining all the more significant, because not only had another year gone by _too damn fast,_ but this year, all too soon, she was going off to Watford.

We celebrated as we always did. Simon made pancakes for breakfast. (Ruby is a pancakes girl, she’ll tell you herself.) (This was fine until we learned it was in lieu of all other breakfast foods, scones included. It’s the only time she ever really disappointed Simon.) (Even so, she’ll eat one every now and then just to make him happy.) And in the evening we dressed up nice (Ruby takes any excuse to get fancy) and drove out to the park for outdoor movie night and a picnic. Every year the city strung up a big screen and projected movies for a few weeks. Somehow the film was always something kid-friendly and fun on Ruby’s birthday. She sat between Simon and I on our picnic blanket, alternating leaning against both of us. The sun set while the film played, and I watched while the pale purple light of dusk lit up my daughter’s smiling face. Every so often Simon would catch my eye and my breath would hitch at how happy I was. We held hands on the blanket behind Ruby.He was outrageously handsome at dusk, and even more so with Ruby resting against him. (It had been more than _five years,_ for Crowley’s sake, but seeing him with Ruby still made me feel a whole symphony of things each time.) It hardly felt real that somehow Simon Snow(-Pitch) was the father of my child. I yearned to send a message to myself at seventeen, to let him know to be patient, that everything turns out _amazing_ somehow _._ Somehow I got this life, this family. Simon and Ruby, the two most important and precious people in the world.

We stumbled home, exhausted and laughing, just before midnight, as we did every year. This was Ruby’s favourite part, when we talked about the funniest parts of the film and opened presents. (I have no idea why we always open her gifts at midnight. It’s not as though there wasn’t time all day. It’s just what we do.) We all sat together in the middle of the living room floor, mugs of hot chocolate in hand, my arm around Simon and Ruby in front of us. 

“Happy birthday, love,” Simon said, handing her a gift. She tore off the paper with abandon (very Simon of her) and her face absolutely lit up with excitement at what was inside.

My grip on Simon tightened, and he wordlessly reached for my other hand and squeezed it. It was a week until Ruby left for Watford. One short week before she stopped coming home from school every day.

She couldn’t wait. She had a countdown on her bedroom wall, and each day she tore off a page.

We got her school supplies, knowing it was all she could think about. She unwrapped a book bag embroidered with her name, notebooks in her favourite colours, colourful pens. Fairy lights and a framed photo of the three of us laughing together, her in the middle, for her room.

The last one was a wand.

She froze when she opened it, holding it gingerly in her fingertips as though it might shatter. She looked up at us with questions in her eyes.

“It’s been in the family for generations,” I told her. She glanced down to admire the beautiful, well-worn carvings in the honey-coloured wood. “It hasn’t belonged to anyone in a long time. I believe it was my grandmother’s.”

“Every mage needs an artefact,” Simon said.

Ruby looked at us again, her expression a mix of hope and fear. “Will it… will it work for me?” 

She sounded so afraid, sad as though she already knew it wouldn’t. My heart broke a little.

“Of course,” I said, though ultimately I didn’t know for sure. I could think of no reason why it wouldn’t, though. “Artefacts always get passed down through families.”

Her brown eyes were downcast, staring at the wand in her hands. I clutched Simon’s hand.

“But…” Her voice sounded thick. “I’m not _really_ your family. Not like that.”

Simon was gathering her up before I could blink. She was getting too big to fit in our laps, but we didn’t care. He hugged her close, tucking her head under his chin. Bronze curls touched brown.

“Ruby, you _are,”_ he was saying to her. I wrapped an arm around her too, stroking her hair. Our darling little girl. “You _are_ really our family. In every single way that matters. The wand will know that.”

I could see her chin trembling as she tried vehemently to reign in what she was feeling. (Very Pitch of her.) “I don’t have your blood, though.” (Don’t remind my father. This was a conversation we’d had before, which in itself was too many times.)

“That doesn’t make a difference,” I said. “It’s a Pitch wand, and you’re Ruby Snow-Pitch. It’s meant for you, love.”

Simon kissed the top of her head. “Just watch. Give it a try.” He met my eyes, and I pressed the wand firm into Ruby’s hands.

We had a silent conversation- what _if_ it didn’t work? Was the wand that big of an asshole? If it didn’t work I’d snap the damn thing in half and say I’d taken the wrong wand from the house.

“Try a spell, Ruby,” I encouraged her. “I know you can do it.”

“I don’t want to,” she whispered, and Simon pressed his face to her hair.

“It’ll work, I know it will,” he said. “And even if it doesn’t, which won’t happen, that doesn’t mean you aren’t our family. Not one bit.”

Ruby looked up at me from beneath Simon’s chin. Her eyes were woeful.

“Ruby,” I murmured, running my hand down her hair again. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to us. You’re my daughter, and this wand doesn’t get to say that’s not true.” Her lips quirked up into a tiny smile, which I returned. “Try it.” I held out my forgotten mug of hot chocolate. Simon straightened up to give her some space. She did too, holding her head high and pointing the wand out straight. She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

“ **You’re getting warmer.** ”

We watched, rapt, as little coils of steam floated up from the mug, and then Simon and I both were hugging Ruby so hard she laughed, out of breath.

“Dad! Father! You’re squishing me!” And we were, but we kept hugging her anyway.

 

 

Simon and I talked about it, a few weeks prior. How much we didn’t want September to arrive.

“You’re one to talk,” he scoffed, when I said I felt the same as him. “You work at Watford. You’ll see her all the time.” He sounded bitter, but his fingers were drawing quick little patterns on my chest and I could feel the anxiety rolling off him. I tugged the covers up a bit further. 

“I know.” I brushed my hand through his curls, splayed on his pillow. “I know. But still it won’t be the same, not having her here.”

His smile was sad. “It’s going to be so different.”

“Yes— who’s going to bring me my coffee now? You?”

He smacked my chest then. “Not if you’re going to be an ass about it.”

I kissed him then, hard and long, and reminded him of a few of the ways I could compensate him for such a gesture.

We agreed that, as much as we hated to part with her, Watford was very important for Ruby. Not just to teach her magic, and to give her lifelong friends and memories, but also to learn how to live without us. How to be her own person without her parents around all of the time. It was for that reason that we decided I shouldn’t go out of my way to check up on her while I was there. My role was to teach my classes, and come home to Simon at the end of the day. I would cherish any time I got with Ruby during the week, but I wouldn’t seek her out more often than necessary (or unless she asked.) Every few weeks Simon would come visit, and the three of us would spend some time together. Ruby also thought this was a good plan, though she said it would be weird if I was her teacher. I promised not to go easy on her if that was the case, and she laughed.

“She’ll miss you so much,” I murmured, tracing my fingertips over the constellations on his face. He pulled me toward him, and lay his head on my chest.

 

 

A week later we were all in the car, nervous and quiet as I drove us to Watford. Simon’s hand was on my leg, and I was tremendously grateful (not that I’d tell him.) Without it I thought I might collapse, or maybe burst.

“You’re below the speed limit,” he commented.

“Excellent job using your eyes, Snow,” I snapped. He squeezed my leg. He knew I didn’t mean it.

“You never go below the limit,” he said, very quietly.

“Usually I want to get where I’m going,” I said, even quieter.

 

 

We unloaded Ruby’s things onto the grass. Watford was bright and pretty as always, teeming with students arriving back from their summer breaks. Upper year students strolled around with their friends like they owned the place, and first years were bee-lining toward Headmistress Bunce, who was ushering them toward the Crucible.

Ruby was shining in Simon’s old Watford sweater. It was a little too big for her, but it was the one he’d worn in our first year. She’d taken to wearing it in the last week, when Simon had dug it out of the wardrobe to show her. He’d done her hair in braids this morning. She loved it when we did her hair. I’m not sure that she cared very much about the end result, but it was always a lot of fun to be squished into the bathroom with her, comb between my teeth while I wrangled long curls. No one could have predicted it, but Simon is leagues better at doing her hair than I am. (A major point of contention in our marriage.) (He likes offering to do mine to piss me off.)

Ruby kept turning around, looking between her emotional parents and the shining white walls of the Cloisters ahead.

“Work hard,” I told her.

“Be safe,” Simon said.

“Remember, Cook Pritchard will have blood for you. Just go see her every few days when you’re thirsty.”

“Eat lots of scones for me.”

“Keep singing.”

“Steer clear of the merwolves.”

“If you need to punch someone, make sure your thumb isn’t tucked into your fist. And it had better be for a good reason.”

“Also make sure they’re not standing at the top of the stairs before you punch them— _Baz._ ”

Ruby raised an expert eyebrow at us, and a surge of pride swooped through my chest. _That’s my girl._

_“_ Really though,” Simon pressed. “Be careful. As soon as the professors see Snow-Pitch on their list they’ll be expecting trouble from you.” He made an excellent point.

“So if you’re going to get in trouble,” I said, “do us proud and make it spectacular.”

“ _No,_ Baz.” We were both biting back laughter. (Nearly seven years of marriage gave our banter practiced ease.)

Ruby was giggling softly, eyes so big and sweet that I could picture her there as an eager five year old once more. Aleister Crowley, how was she already starting Watford? (How was I going to manage?)

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Simon said with a half smile. I nodded in agreement, shooting Ruby a serious stare. She called my bluff with a sly grin immediately. “Come to think of it,” Simon continued, “also don’t do anything that your father _would_ do.”

That was reasonable, and Ruby knew it.

She was so clever, so thoughtful. She would be absolutely fine. She had been waiting for her chance at Watford for so long, and she was more than ready to take it on with grace and courage. And it was time for her to go.

My smile had twisted, turning sad. “Come find me whenever you need me.” I hoped she would— that she wouldn’t try to tough through anything alone. She was only eleven, for Crowley’s sake.

Simon’s voice was thick. “Write home lots.”

“And be good to your roommate,” I said. Simon’s hand found mine. “The Crucible will put you together for a reason.” It was too much to hope that she would meet the love of her life on her first day at Watford. But nonetheless, her roommate would hold a special place in her heart for all her life.

Ruby laughed. “I know. I’ve heard the story a million times.”

“We don’t tell it _that_ often,” Simon lied.

“Yes you do,” Ruby chided. “But I like hearing it.” 

“So do I,” I mumbled, at the same time as Simon. Crowley, I love him.

Simon hugged Ruby, mumbling in her ear that he’d miss her like hell and to have so much fun. When he let her go, I pulled her to me and squeezed her tight.

“I’ll see you around, love,” I said softly. “But I’ll miss you anyway.” Her arms tightened around my neck. I kissed her forehead and handed her her bags.

“I’ll miss you both so much,” she said. She took a tiny step backward, toward the gates. “Love you!”

Simon and I reached for each other again. “Love you too,” we said simultaneously, grinning tearfully at Ruby. She gave us one last big, bright smile, before she turned around and headed through the gates.

Simon was leaning heavily on me. “We need to get out of here,” he said.

“Simon?”

“There are so many parents here and I’m about to cry.”

I kissed a tear off his cheekbone. “About to?”

“Shut up.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to all who showed so much kind support for Ruby Red! I wrote the first installment as a one-shot, but I think there are some more Ruby stories to tell. I welcome inspiration and suggestions!


End file.
